CMPD officers move up Old Concord Road in Charlotte, NC on Tuesday night past a vandalized department vehicle. A protest began on Old Concord Road at Bonnie Lane, where a CMPD officer fatally shot a man in the parking lot of The Village at College Downs apartment complex earlier Tuesday.The man who died was identified late Tuesday as Keith Scott, 43 and the officer who fired the fatal shot was CMPD Officer Brentley Vinson. Jeff Sinerjsiner@charlotteobserver.com

CMPD officers move up Old Concord Road in Charlotte, NC on Tuesday night past a vandalized department vehicle. A protest began on Old Concord Road at Bonnie Lane, where a CMPD officer fatally shot a man in the parking lot of The Village at College Downs apartment complex earlier Tuesday.The man who died was identified late Tuesday as Keith Scott, 43 and the officer who fired the fatal shot was CMPD Officer Brentley Vinson. Jeff Sinerjsiner@charlotteobserver.com

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But “they also make it possible for rumors and other falsehoods to spread – and could likely make a tense situation worse.” Still, she said, social media, overall, “has really helped” raise awareness of police shootings.

By 9 p.m. Tuesday, a Facebook video of a woman identifying herself as Scott’s daughter had been viewed nearly half a million times. In the video, originally live-streamed, she says he was unarmed, sitting in his car reading a book and waiting for the school bus to drop off his son before he was shot.

That narrative differed from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s, which said that a handgun was found at the scene of the north Charlotte shooting, and that a book was not.

In a press conference Wednesday morning, CMPD Chief Kerr Putney acknowledged the difference: “I can tell you from the facts that the stories will be different as to how it’s been portrayed so far, especially through social media.”

People on the scene Tuesday night used Twitter and live-streaming video on Facebook to show where protesters were gathering, police reactions and the increasing tensions as the night progressed.

One Charlotte poster’s two-hour-plus live video, one of 11 posted on Mills Shaka Zulu Gill’s page over about eight hours, had nearly 2 million views by Wednesday afternoon, and had been shared more than 100,000 times. His posts included conversations with people who said they had witnessed the shooting, sweeping views of protesters chanting and a running personal commentary. Viewers’ comments included “Watching you from Australia.”

Other posters and commenters gave specific addresses for where protesters were, and instructions – “Come out” in voiceovers, to “BRING WATER AND FIRST AID KITS.” Some posted that protesters were peaceful. In other posted videos, water bottles being hurled at police are visible.

The hashtags #KeithLamontScott and #CharlotteProtests were trending within hours in Charlotte and beyond, alongside #blacklivesmatter and #TerenceCrutcher, the name of a man shot by police in Tulsa, Okla., last week.

Earlier this summer, a black man named Philando Castile was shot by police in Minnesota less than 48 hours after a similar shooting in Louisiana, in which a white officer killed a black man named Alton Sterling. In both cases, cellphone video footage of the shooting or its immediate aftermath quickly spread on social media, fueling anger and protests.

Protesters have taken to the streets of Charlotte following the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday. Officials allege a black officer opened fire on Scott after he emerged from his car with a gun in the University City area. Family members say Scott, a disabled black man, was holding a book. Nicole L. Cvetnic / McClatchy